HISTOLOGY AND HISTOPATHOLOGY

From Cell Biology to Tissue Engineering

 

Epstein - Barr virus (EBV) association with plasma cell neoplasms

Ali Nael1, William W. Wu2, Imran Siddiqi3, Xiaohui Zhao4, Kanwarpal S. Kahlon5 and Sherif A. Rezk4

1Department of Pathology, Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), Orange, 2Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Kaiser Permanente Fontana Medical Center, Fontana, CA, 3Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Southern California (USC), 4Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of California Irvine (UCI), Irvine, CA and 5Division of Hematology-Oncology, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA, USA

Offprint requests to: Sherif A. Rezk, M.D., Chief of Laboratory Medicine, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of California Irvine, 101 The City Drive, Orange, CA 92868, USA. e-mail: srezk@uci.edu


Summary. Aims. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) expression has been reported in several hematopoietic and non-hematopoietic disorders but its expression in plasma cell neoplasms has been largely limited to immunodeficiency-related cases such as in the setting of post-organ transplantation or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. The aim of this study is to evaluate the association of EBV with plasma cell neoplasms, mainly in immunocompetent patients. Methods and results. We retrospectively studied 147 cases of patients with different plasma cell neoplasms (109 plasma cell myelomas, 22 plasmacytomas, and 16 monoclonal gammopathy cases). Six patients were immunocompromised. EBV was positive in 6 cases; 3 immunocompromised (2 patients with HIV infection and 1 patient was post-renal transplant) and 3 immunocompetent patients with plasmacytoma and variable plasmablastic features. Conclusions. Our data shows that EBV was negative in all plasma cell myeloma cases in immunocompetent patients and has an overall low association with the different plasma cell neoplasms in the immunocompetent setting. When expressed, it is usually associated with variable plasmablastic features. Histol Histopathol 34, 655-662 (2019)

Key words: Plasma cell neoplasms (PCN), Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), Plasma cell myeloma, Plasmacytoma, Plasmablastic

DOI: 10.14670/HH-18-066